Do we see any problem there? Probably not. Look in the TCP/IP - Advanced Properties wizard, WINS tab. There are 3 possible settings for NetBIOS Over TCP/IP

Default.

Enable.

Disable.

The last setting, Disable, becomes apparent when we see the first example above. But what if if we see the second example above? Well, that display can result from either the "Default", or the "Enable" setting. If it's not showing Disabled, it could be either.

But what if your LAN has a NAT router providing DHCP services, and / or has no domain? NAT routers are Operating System independent, and NetBT is a Microsoft Windows Networking feature. NAT routers have no setting for NetBIOS Over TCP/IP. If you select "Default", and you have a NAT router, what network functionality do you get?

The challenge is that this one setting affects multiple functions between your computer, and other computers, in both directions.

Depending upon what network hardware and software you have, any or all of the above functions may or may not work, in either direction (incoming or outgoing), between any pair of computers. And each different pair of computers may yield a different set of symptoms. If you have a NAT router providing DHCP services, the only way to deal with this reliably is to Enable NetBT consistently, on all computers.

I've enjoyed reading through all of your blog but was particularly interested in this article since I've always wondered about the answer to the question you posed midway through:"If you select "Default", and you have a NAT router, what network functionality do you get?"Unfortunately, you never really answered it. Do you know what happens, for instance with a basic Linksys router, if you select "Use NETBIOS setting from DHCP server"?

Also, is there another way to test whether NetBT is Enabled, since your 2nd example of ipconfig/all doesn't show us??

Thanks for the comments. You are asking a couple questions that I have been asking for a while, and so far found no official word from Microsoft.

The first question is purely rhetorical. NAT routers are concerned with only routing IP traffic. NetBT traffic is local to the LAN, and stays with the switch. Thus a DHCP server on a NAT router isn't going to have any concept of NetBT.

You have to have a dedicated DHCP server to have a NetBT setting provided. If NetBT is set to "Default", and the computer gets a DHCP setting from a NAT router, the result is undefined.

Apparently, if the ipconfig log doesn't say "NetBT disabled", then NetBT is enabled. You can check the current setting from the "net config" logs.

This article was perfect and solved my problems - I don't know what happened on our network or why I may have been the only one affected, but simply changing the setting from Default to Enable worked perfectly. Thanks a ton for your help!

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As long as anybody can walk into Sears or
Walmart, and buy a computer or piece of networking gear, take it home,
and install it by herself (himself) there will always be possible
problems. I'll try to help identify the problems, and figure out the
solutions.